1-day walkouts by Ont. elementary teachers spread to 2 more districts

Two more school boards were hit by one-day elementary teacher strikes, Tuesday.

Teachers from the Niagara and Keewatin-Patricia school boards in northwestern Ontario will be off the job in a protest over Bill 115.

The walkouts started on Monday in the Stratford and Timmins area.

It’s expected Toronto will be up sometime next week since the union had said one-day walkouts will make their way through all of the boards by Dec. 20.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said Monday that the teachers are striking over money, but their union maintains it is trying to roll back a new anti-strike law that gives Queen’s Park the power to impose a new collective agreement.

McGuinty also said the one-day strikes by elementary teachers are a “small price to pay” to protect gains in education, and his government won’t intervene in the rotating strikes.

However, he would prefer the matter be settled in court, where elementary and secondary school teachers’ unions are already challenging the anti-strike legislation, and involving students in the conflict is the wrong thing to do.

“I understand we have a difference of opinion with respect to Bill 115, but you are in fact consummate, committed professionals,” he said. “Don’t deprive Ontario students of everything that you bring to the table every day.”

The Premier added that the government has already shown its ability to work out deals so that students’ lives are not disrupted.

“We’ve entered into agreements already with some 55,000 teachers who are representing OECTA (Ontario Separate School System), as well as the French Public and the French Catholic school boards,” he said.

“We have demonstrated that we can enter into these kinds of agreements that are respectful of teachers, respectful as well of our financial challenges,” he added. “Why do we have to involve our students in this? I just don’t think we do, nor do I think we should.”

Meanwhile, NDP leader Andrea Horwath said she tried to warn the Premier not to go down this path.

“He did it all because he thought he could get a ticket to win a byelection and get to majority power back in the province,” she told reporters, Tuesday. “That is absolutely the wrong reason for doing anything in this legislature.”

“Now the Premier is re-writing history to make it sound like this is all about a pay cut. That’s not what this is about – it’s about something quite different than that,” she added.

“I think it’s shameful that the government has put us where we are now. There were other paths that they could have taken, and instead they chose the path for their own political benefit, and we’ve ended up in some big trouble.”